Update on the new rules impacting children of Canadian Expats
The big story has got to be about the new laws and how they will affect children of Canadian Expats. The Canadian Expat Association and Robin Pascoe of Expat Expert fame and author of five books on global living for expatriate families have been working together to make sure the government of Canada is aware of the implications of these new rules.
If you are just tuning in, here is the gist of the issue:
As of April 17th, new citizenship rules will come into effect that will impact the lives of Canadian children born abroad. If these children end up having their own kids while abroad they will not be eligible for Canadian Citizenship. Given the mobile nature of current and future generations of Expat kids, the likelihood of these individuals venturing abroad to work or study is very high. We are on a mission to get the rules stopped before the April 17th deadline so that they can be revisited.
I participated in an online discussion moderated by the Globe and Mail on February 3rd. You can visit a transcript of the discussion here: Globe and Mail Discussions
We appear to be making progress. Canadian Immigration and Citizenship was part of the discussions as well and according to the Globe and Mail, this was the first time someone from a governmental department has asked to participate without being first invited. This shows that CIC is paying attention.
Please don’t stop writing. Make sure you post the information on your blog, tell your relatives to write to their MP and please send an email to Jason Kenney. Tell them that we need this law stopped and revisited in light of the issues that we are bringing forward. This is crucial.
Send your emails to Jason Kenney: Hon. Jason Kenney, Kenney.J@parl.gc.ca
Does anyone know how much it costs for expats (ie. those of us who no longer have health coverage in Canada)to give birth in Canada, specifically Ontario?
Hi, I’m writing a piece for the South China Morning Post about this? Any expats currently in HK or lived there but are now back in Canada/Vancouver who I can call for an interview?
Peg
pfong@novuscom.net
Hi Helen, I did a little digging and came up with this reply.
Allan
Question: Canadians that choose to have kids should make sure that they come back to Canada to give birth. Clearly this is impractical in most cases and costly.
Answer: You do have a practical issue most travel insurance policies and Physicians do not recommend air travel in the last trimester of a pregnancy. If the returning Canadian does come back to their Province, (provincial - government health insurance plan) GHIP will take 3 months or 90 days after registration to become effective (in most provinces). Meaning that the returning Canadian would have to pay for the birth and any complications from their own pocket, prices could range from $2, 000 - $4,000 or if complications we have seen prices in excess of $200,000.00. Arrangements can be made to limit the high costs, but this does take work and some organization. Expatriate plans may not cover you in your home country (some plans that we do offer will cover for return visits to Canada of 3 months at a time. In general Once you leave your province for 180 days – 212 days (depending on the province) the GHIP will no longer cover you and you will need to re-apply when coming back and be faced with a waiting period (so the expatriate will be treated by the health care system like they are a non-resident).
Question: If they have Expat Medical Insurance would they still be charged something from a Canadian province? How much?
Answer: See above & the Expatriate plan may provide coverage, some plans require you to have a maternity benefit or purchase a family plan and all expatriate plans (except employer group) will have some form of stability or pre-existing medical / pregnancy waiting period – which can be as short as 6 months and as long as 24 months. Since the province will not cover your insurer will need to, they usually provide an emergency assistance / claims number and you would need to contact them for authorization and possibly to go to their specified physician or health care facility. ALSO please note: Many plans list Canada and the USA as a higher priced area of travel (because of high health care costs) if you did not buy a plan which provides coverage in Canada or pay for that coverage you may not have benefits.
This is outrageous. Can the Canadian Expat Association inform the Minister that if the law passes, it intends to launch a challenge of its legality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? The new law would I think be deemed unconstitutional under the Charter’s equality rights provisions, and under its mobility rights provisions (6.1 Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada).
PSG: Thanks for that- This is a route that we are investigating.
Please also e-mail Maurizio Bevilacqua BevilM@parl.gc.ca (Liberal Critic) and Olivia Chow chow.o@parl.gc.ca (NDP critic)about this law which has been instituted as a knee-jerk response to our Lebanese/Canadian problemns a couple of years ago.
Another example of “Steve” pandering to the LCD for votes.
It is amazing how many “true Canucks” are calling talk radio to agree with this law—clearly UN-mobile folk, but sadly, the vocal minority!
I am in the unenviable situation of having grandchildren who may not be welcomed to the country of which I was once so proud, so please help to overturn this ludicrous legislation. Thanks.
Thanks for the government email contacts - I have written to all three. My son was born in SE Asia while my wife and I were working for a humanitarian organization there for several year (we subsequently returned to Canada, but are now reposted to Cambodia again). He will be a global citizen by nature, so fair possibility to have his own family out of the country, hence my significant concern with the changes to the law.
But I want to clarify one thing: if my son (born outside Canada) marries a Canadian born IN Canada, and then they have a child outside Canada, that child will be Canadian by birth, due not to his father (my son), but to his natural-born mother….right?
wclimenh; That is correct. In the terms CIC is using, your son is a 1st generation Canadian born abroad. If his wife was either born abroad herself or was not Canadian and their child was born abroad, the child would be 2nd generation Canadian born abroad and would not be Canadian.
In your example, his wife was born in Canada. In this case your son’s child would also be 1st generation Canadian born abroad and would be faced with the same problem looming over his head as his father (your son).
Olivia Chow raised this topic in Question Period today. As I understood Jason Kenney’s reply, CIC is planning to revisit the rules for children who are adopted abroad, but not for those born abroad!!
So, 1st generation Canadians born abroad are still going to be considered “second tier” citizens, by my definition.
How can this be right?
Thanks for that.
I had let Olivia know about the situation and I had heard that she asked the question but hadn’t heard Min Kenney’s response.
This is not over folks! At least it is being brought up in the house. We need to keep pushing tho’. We need to get the Liberals on board as well.
Keep writing! Don’t stop writing.
If they are willing to revisit the law as it applies to one group they are able to address others as well!
FYI, Hansard puts the Feb. 11 Question Period exchange as follows:
Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, the government made changes to the citizenship law that would discriminate against the children of adopted Canadians. It would strip their children’s right to Canadian citizenship and also penalize those who work overseas.
Starting on April 17, the minister is legislating a system of second-class citizens, and that is wrong.
Would the minister tell us how he can justify withholding Canadian citizenship from children born to Canadian parents?
Hon. Jason Kenney (Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, first, I congratulate the member on her appointment as immigration critic for the NDP.
Second, I completely reject the premise of her question. The bill to which she refers was adopted by all parties in both chambers of the House, including the NDP.
It was a remarkable effort by my predecessor to fix a long-standing problem that had left thousands of Canadians without citizenship, the so-called “lost Canadians”. We have restored citizenship to them through these amendments. We have also ensured the value of Canadian citizenship so that permanent non-residents with little or no connection to this country will not be able to pass on Canadian citizenship ad infinitum. As it relates to adoption, we are looking at that issue.
Thanks sherouper;
Mr. Kenney has skirted past the issue of Canadians living abroad temporarily.
I spoke with the office of the Liberal Critic (the Hon. Maurizio Bevilacqua) on the 15th and apparently he has tabled a motion in the House standing committee to have these amendments revisited with our issues in mind. We need to keep those letters rolling in.
I see these posts are almost a year ago. Can anyone update me on what happened. Our son was born in Kuwait. He may travel himself later on, though he is not married at the moment that is a future possiblity. We now live in Mexico
Hi LegalBlonde,
The bill became law and although the association attended a standing committee hearing in June, with possible elections the fall and now government not sitting until March, nothing moves.
Here’s a link to a timeline we published in November.
http://thecanadianexpat.com/index.php/2009/11/04/bill-c37-update/
Hi folks, there’s a non-partisan facebook group where we can all gather (the international adoption community and the Canadians abroad) and get organized.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=319307031831